Staff & Faculty News

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a greenhouse gas that is contributing to irreversible climate change. Scientists know how to capture CO₂, and they know how to transform it into useful molecules and materials.

But that transformation is neither energy nor cost-effective.

Through a prestigious grant from the Department of Energy (DOE), a diverse group of scientists, including a chemist from UC Merced, plan to address that problem by coupling two chemistries which are known to work independently, but don't work well together.

For the first time, UC Merced faculty members from each of the campus’s three schools have been chosen as principal investigators on some of the 21 exciting new projects that are being funded through UC’s Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI).

In addition, UC Merced researchers are collaborating on 10 of the other projects.

"A family that works together, stays together" is not usually how the saying goes. But for one family at UC Merced, it describes their relationship perfectly.

Diana Maravilla has worked at the campus since 2011, her daughter Sharee Sok joined in 2015, and her granddaughter Korynn Maravilla recently graduated from UC Merced and is now a staff member as well, making three generations currently on UC Merced's staff.

But all good things must come to an end. Diana is set to retire in early January.

Although climate change is still a very real challenge, the past decades of efforts to reduce the effects of human activities on the atmosphere have been potent enough to have thrown off the models scientists use to understand and forecast the atmosphere’s chemical composition and cleansing capacity.

Life and Environmental Sciences Professor Emily Moran and collaborators at several other universities are set to conduct a continental-scale analysis of climate change effects on tree reproduction.

When planting crops, farmers confront numerous questions. Among them: Will it get too hot? Is it likely frost will stunt growing? When is the best time to plant? What kind of pests could impact the harvest?

Fire scientists typically respond to agency opportunities and conduct research in response to past wildfires. But it is time they take more proactive, integrative, predictive approaches toward mitigating and adapting to this potentially devastating consequence of climate change, a group of scientists advocates.

Adding even a small amount of biochar — a charcoal-like material produced by burning organic matter — to a dairy’s manure-composting process reduces methane emissions by 84%, a recent study by UC Merced researchers shows.

The dairy industry is one of the main sources of methane in California, making up 50% of the state’s methane emissions. Reducing these emissions is a critical part of state and federal efforts to address climate change.

Rakesh Goel developed an interest in earthquakes at an early age — and rather abruptly.

As a small boy in India, one of his first memories is of experiencing an earthquake.

"I must have been a few years old and there was a big earthquake," said Dr. Goel. "I clung to the window, thinking that it was a big freight train going by the house."

Molecular and Cellular Biology Professor Michele “Nish” Nishiguchi has been inducted as a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and was recently named president-elect for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB).

She is one of 11 distinguished scientists inducted at the California Academy of Sciences’ Annual Fellows Gathering this year.